CHEMO GALS (2023)
Words by Keoni K. Wright
If the chemo clinic was a bus terminal along the road to recovery, then I was the degenerate in the corner sipping his breakfast out of a brown paper bag. I wandered into my chemo sessions like the lost and languid, perpetually proud of my hangover and the visible bruises on my body from the weekend's rugby match. No one around me ever dared to penetrate the halo of "fuck-offedness" I projected.
Fun fact - people who frequent chemo clinics tend to have a lot on their minds. Another fun fact - following a cancer diagnosis, people tend to become selfish pricks. But that's okay because... well... they have fucking cancer.
I was a very particular type of prick. I was a Navy prick. This detail is critical to my story (although, maybe not to this story). I was receiving my cancer treatment, chemo and all, at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. I was also living on the Army base just "up the hill" from the hospital. As a Navy cancer patient residing on Army real estate, I was flying well under the radar. Don't get me wrong. I was still institutionalized, but I was removed from just about all of the responsibility and oversight that comes with Navy life. You might even say that I was autonomous.
Military aside, I was the type of testicular cancer patient worthy of a full page spread in the New England Journal of Medicine, or so I thought. I was doing cancer my way. Chemotherapy was the inconveniently placed brown lettuce garnish at the edge of my stacked buffet plate. No matter what I did, it was always in the way. And maybe that's also the best way to describe my views on the disease that ravaged my left testicle and spread to regions near my kidney. More than just a bummer, cancer was a major inconvenience.Friends and family thought that I was hell bent on trying to prove the doctors wrong. When the doctors said that I could no longer play rugby due to a low white blood cell count, I made it a point to lace up my rugby boots every weekend. When they told me that rest and sobriety would be the keys to my healing success, I took up all night rave dancing and drinking. When they said that my immune system was too weak to support random, unprotected sexual encounters, I became a whore.
In actuality, it wasn't about proving anyone wrong. It was about undoing the inconvenience of the situation. Cancer and chemo asked a lot of me. I needed to indulge, extraordinarily, in things that I wanted to do. It was a rare take on time management from a man who loved taking a mile after being given a yard. If this were an article in Harper's Bazaar or the New Yorker, or if I was giving an exclusive interview to Oprah, I might prefer to say something like - "I was reclaiming myself."
A lot can be gleaned from the genesis of a situation. My reaction to my initial testicular cancer diagnosis says it all.
"But my cock will still work, right?" I asked the female Naval urologist after she gave her initial diagnostic salvo. She sported a witch-crafty haircut reminiscent of a bad night out in Albuquerque.
She smiled from underneath all that hair. "Of course, but we need to remove your testicle today, Honey, so that the cancer doesn't spread to your organs, bones, and brain. We're on the clock."
"But my cock will still work, right?" I asked the female Naval urologist after she gave her initial diagnostic salvo. She sported a witch-crafty haircut reminiscent of a bad night out in Albuquerque.
She smiled from underneath all that hair. "Of course, but we need to remove your testicle today, Honey, so that the cancer doesn't spread to your organs, bones, and brain. We're on the clock."
"Is there any way I could get like thirty days of leave? Maybe go to Vegas? You know one last whirlwind trip, just me and my ball?" I asked.
She took no time to answer. "No. I won't authorize that."
The removal of my left testicle was just the beginning. Further tests revealed that the cancer had spread to my abdomen. A cluster of cancerous cells were spotted hanging out by my kidneys. Chemo was the logical next step.
The chemo clinic is a place for healing where nothing is guaranteed but pain, fatigue, and nausea. It is a place where patients with varying cancers congregate to stare at the ceiling from the comfort of a recliner, and occasionally, pretend not to stare at the circumstances of those seated around them. There were no partitions or walls. There were no drawn hospital curtains to hide behind. The chemo clinic concept is as communal a form of Western medicine as one might find. The reality is glaring. We were like mirrors for denial's reflection.
I used the clinic as a place to sober up, cool my loins, and snack on a bag or two of potato chips my mother brought for me. Yes, my poor mother was there through it all. Nothing like having your mother play the role of participant observer - a witness to my brave attempts at skimming rock bottom in the face of disease. As if the disease weren't enough.
For the curious, chemotherapy is a cumulative process. It builds like a cancer fighting poison in your system with each delivered dose. The cancer weakens, and so too does your body. I was prone to paralyzing lethargy, vomiting, and constipation.
My response was to revel in denial's den with thick tufts of cotton in my ears. What should have been a time for deep introspection was just a time for weak erections, but erections none-the-less. Nurses found it difficult to get my attention in the clinic. I was all too wrapped up in not giving a shit. But there was one class of chemo patient who never failed to lure my envy from its narrow well. They were the breast cancer patients.
I hate to generalize, but these generalizations are of the good kind. The scenes were so often the same. A bald-headed woman, her face a-light with a smile and energy that extended well beyond her. A light bright enough to penetrate the tint of my gaudy, convenience store bought shades. Her slightly pale, opaque face told of the harshness a mastectomy can leave in its wake and the subtle cruelty of chemo. It was a real face and far more beautiful than one covered in cosmetics. She would take her seat in the recliner across from me; a recliner that immediately became like a throne.
She either presented her arm for a poke or assisted the nurse in hooking up to her PICC. Those breast cancer chemo-gals always knew what was up. They never missed a beat. They feverishly recorded feelings and technicalities in diaries and marked events in the personal calendars they carried. They were organized and yearned to be informed at every turn. They viewed their bodies, even in such vulnerable states, as temples. I viewed my corporeal self as a combination elopers chapel and love motel just off the Vegas strip.
The chemo gals left nothing solely in the hands of nurses nor in the hands of God. They were their own control center, but there was more. There were more.
More often than not, the chemo gals arrived at the clinic with their small children and disheveled looking husbands in tow. The husbands always looked way in over their heads. The exact opposite of their wives.
The small children, impervious to what was really going on, danced and played at their mothers' feet without a care. As children are prone to do, they occasionally broke cadence and cried out for attention. Dad's tired, dreary face only made things worse. The children wanted a mother's love. And the chemo gals never failed in giving it to them. And never without a smile. The chemo gals gave their children equal amounts of lap time, dipping into their steel reserve of strength to pick the children up from the floor and plop them back down on a whim.
Those chemo gals were the truest picture of compassionate courage under fire. I, on the other hand, was my own disease.
The chemo clinic is a place for healing where nothing is guaranteed but pain, fatigue, and nausea. It is a place where patients with varying cancers congregate to stare at the ceiling from the comfort of a recliner, and occasionally, pretend not to stare at the circumstances of those seated around them. There were no partitions or walls. There were no drawn hospital curtains to hide behind. The chemo clinic concept is as communal a form of Western medicine as one might find. The reality is glaring. We were like mirrors for denial's reflection.
I used the clinic as a place to sober up, cool my loins, and snack on a bag or two of potato chips my mother brought for me. Yes, my poor mother was there through it all. Nothing like having your mother play the role of participant observer - a witness to my brave attempts at skimming rock bottom in the face of disease. As if the disease weren't enough.
For the curious, chemotherapy is a cumulative process. It builds like a cancer fighting poison in your system with each delivered dose. The cancer weakens, and so too does your body. I was prone to paralyzing lethargy, vomiting, and constipation.
My response was to revel in denial's den with thick tufts of cotton in my ears. What should have been a time for deep introspection was just a time for weak erections, but erections none-the-less. Nurses found it difficult to get my attention in the clinic. I was all too wrapped up in not giving a shit. But there was one class of chemo patient who never failed to lure my envy from its narrow well. They were the breast cancer patients.
I hate to generalize, but these generalizations are of the good kind. The scenes were so often the same. A bald-headed woman, her face a-light with a smile and energy that extended well beyond her. A light bright enough to penetrate the tint of my gaudy, convenience store bought shades. Her slightly pale, opaque face told of the harshness a mastectomy can leave in its wake and the subtle cruelty of chemo. It was a real face and far more beautiful than one covered in cosmetics. She would take her seat in the recliner across from me; a recliner that immediately became like a throne.
She either presented her arm for a poke or assisted the nurse in hooking up to her PICC. Those breast cancer chemo-gals always knew what was up. They never missed a beat. They feverishly recorded feelings and technicalities in diaries and marked events in the personal calendars they carried. They were organized and yearned to be informed at every turn. They viewed their bodies, even in such vulnerable states, as temples. I viewed my corporeal self as a combination elopers chapel and love motel just off the Vegas strip.
The chemo gals left nothing solely in the hands of nurses nor in the hands of God. They were their own control center, but there was more. There were more.
More often than not, the chemo gals arrived at the clinic with their small children and disheveled looking husbands in tow. The husbands always looked way in over their heads. The exact opposite of their wives.
The small children, impervious to what was really going on, danced and played at their mothers' feet without a care. As children are prone to do, they occasionally broke cadence and cried out for attention. Dad's tired, dreary face only made things worse. The children wanted a mother's love. And the chemo gals never failed in giving it to them. And never without a smile. The chemo gals gave their children equal amounts of lap time, dipping into their steel reserve of strength to pick the children up from the floor and plop them back down on a whim.
Those chemo gals were the truest picture of compassionate courage under fire. I, on the other hand, was my own disease.
Thirteen years on from my "battle" with cancer, I'm glad I finally got around to giving those women of the chemo clinic their due. Or so I hope.
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